Triptych
by OhThatsWanky
Summary: In which Santana tries to adjust to a life without Brittany. S4 angst. A rare descent into writing canon.


You will open your eyes. You will reach for her in bed. You will realize she isn't there. She hasn't been there for months. It's been so long you've forgotten how the mattress sinks under her weight, how she smiles in her sleep, the way her hair falls over her eyes.

You will drag yourself out of bed. You will look into the mirror and promise yourself you won't do anything reckless today. You will go to practice and do extra push-ups, extra laps around the field, and forget all the times she did push-ups and ran laps right beside you.

You will reach across a counter and take a cup of coffee from a woman whose eyes remind you of hers. You will smile at the woman only because of this. You will get used to pretending to be happy when you feel yourself slipping deeper into the nothing you feel inside.

You will send her an email, but make it safe. "Hey, how are you? Hope you're doing well," you will say, and she will send back an equally safe email with even fewer words. You will rip these scraps apart searching for hidden meanings. You will deconstruct her words and reconstruct them into theories. She's hurting just like you are. She's in love with another. She wants you back.

You will not log in to Facebook.

You will see a flash of color the same as her hair, and you will remember fine strands entwined in your hands and fingers as you pull her close and kiss her, the taste of her mouth sweet against your tongue. You will replay kisses like a flipbook in your mind, feel the heat seared into each image as it flashes by, and remember how every kiss closed the loop between your brain and your clit. This picture show will leave you breathless and sweltering with need, and you will welcome it because it will be the first genuine thing you've felt all day.

You will tell yourself that in the musical that is your life, this is not the ending. That you still have songs left. That you still have time to write, to fill the pages of your score with another just like her, better than her, someone who will love you back. She said she loved you back, didn't she? Or is that just another placeholder for a memory you no longer have?

You will go through the motions. You will live another day and die a little inside. She does not want you. She does not want you.

You will close your eyes. You will fall asleep. And in the morning, you will—

.x.

"She's beautiful."

Elaine's in the passenger seat. She'd been looking out the window the past hour, but now she's looking at you. You say nothing. You've said six words in sixty minutes, and apparently Elaine's had enough of the silence so she tries again. "She's not what I expected."

"What, you thought I'd be with some mullet-headed housefrau?"

"Santana Lopez would never get with someone who wasn't as hot as she was."

"Obviously." You don't tell her that Brittany has always been beautiful to you, even when she wasn't, like when she'd wake from sleep, a puddle of drool on her pillow, or the time she had the chicken pox in middle school and the rash was so bad you held her hands for two straight weeks to keep her from scratching, or the first time you saw her, in the third grade when she was all lanky arms and legs and skinned knees and mud and leaves in her hair.

Elaine turns and opens her arms in a shrug that isn't modest at all. "It's why you asked me, obviously."

You roll your eyes. "I asked you 'cause I saw you kissing that Tri-delt at that Homecoming party - and because I knew you would do it again for a price."

"I like putting on a good show. And it landed me a Teke, didn't it?"

"More like landed you the keys to his Mustang and access to his credit card."

"I have to fund my cocaine and denim habit somehow."

"I rest my case."

Elaine smiles, but you feel her eyes on you. "Is she the reason you quit?"

How do you tell her about the days spent desperately trying to care about 20th century literature and calculus and the history of the ancient world when the only history that mattered was the span of three thousand, seven hundred days stretching back to that first day of third grade and that blonde-haired ball of energy that bounced into you with a "Hi, my name's Brittany, what's yours?"

You don't. Instead, you just say, "Maybe."

You sit in silence except for the sound of the highway slipping by and the snap of chewing gum, and you watch the road as Elaine watches the farmland pass by, until she turns suddenly and asks you, "What are you going to do now?"

You don't know.

.x.

You will open your eyes in a bed sized for one in an apartment that isn't as much yours as it is a place to crash in between auditions. You will try not to kill your roommates even though they're certainly trying to kill you out of sheer annoyance, because they're still your friends, and the three of you have to stick together here in this city of millions.

You will wonder sometimes if this was a good idea, after the tenth, the fiftieth, the hundredth rejection. You will look in the mirror and loathe the failure you see there, until you remember that there's one person who doesn't care about any of that. You will remember that she said she loves you, and that she's your best friend, and you will finally trust her to be the person she always said she was.

You will brush past a woman in a coffee shop whose eyes remind you of hers, and you will smile, knowing that she's out there, somewhere, and that she's happy, somewhere, even if that happiness means being with someone other than you.

You will send her text messages. "Audition 2day, wish me luck," you will say, and she'll send one back immediately, "Good luck, baby xxx" and you will tuck these tiny fragments close to your heart and step out on stage in front of a row of unsmiling people and sing as if she's the only one in the room.

You will log in to Facebook — but not too often.

You will sleep with other women, to take the edge off when you miss it too much and your need grows too great. You will enjoy yourself, and even come to appreciate the variety in these encounters, but none of them will taste like she does, or move like she does, or touch you like she does. These tumbles into unfamiliar beds will crackle with the excitement of something new, like glossy wrapping paper over things you don't know you want and don't have the time to discover. There's no room for patience in a one night stand.

You will sing on days when singing is the last thing you want to do in the world and sing on days when it's the only thing you've got, because you're following your score and you've reached the part marked "risoluto" and you still have so many pages to go.

You will live every day. You will appreciate your friends, and this city, and the possibilities. You will wait for her. You will wait for her.

You will lie back on your bed made for one. You will close your eyes. And you will think of her.


End file.
